The Dragon’s Hoard | Ryne fiction |

The first one appeared in the middle of a storm. Lightning broke the night sky and rain pounded the earth. The dragon, as most, was asleep deep within his lair, exhaling plumes of ashy smoke and warming gold beneath his belly. A violent sneeze woke the dragon, he reared his great head and snapping his barbed tail. A second sneeze followed. Mallow the Destroyer stalked down his mound of gold and swept across his caverns. He gave a wordless roar and his breath steamed in the chilly night air. The cave echoed with his threat: “None who enter here may leave.” A small bundle sat on the floor next to a number of black-steel swords. A little hand seemed to be curiously poking at one. The dragon roared. “WHO FORFEITS THEIR LIFE TO MY CAVES?” Mallow thumped his mighty tale against the ground and the bundle jumped. The thing turned and snot ran down its face. A child, no more than seven. And they were staring up at the dragon with a starry-eyed confusion. The little creature rubbed her sleeve across her snotty nose a few times and blinked. Mallow blew hot air in her face and her blonde curls swept back. A ratty scarf was tied around the girl's neck, she was bundled up in several layers, a blue coat was far too large for her. Packaged like a stuffed ham, the girl's arms stuck out at stark angles and she toddled more than walked in a pair of secondhand boots. "I am Laurel," she announced in a voice that was far too loud. She wore a pair of thick earmuffs and two sets of bandages wrapped around her head. Mallow narrowed his eyes, he bared his terrible teeth, and thrashed his tail and the little creature wobbled and fell onto her behind. The girl's eyes became even larger somehow, but she didn't weep. Didn't flee. Didn't run. "What are you doing? Tell me how you wish to die!" The dragon sneered, but it was no use. The child's ears were stuffed and she could not hear him. Mallow was forced to dig out a cursed notebook and write down words in the common tongue. Instead of answering, the child wiped at its snotty face and shrugged. She pointed at herself. "I am Laurel. Mallow might've eaten her or burned her to a crisp, but there was a note pinned to her overstuffed coat: for your hoard. The first one's name was Laurel. The second was Rowan. They were sisters with black hair the texture of crow's feathers and large eyes that made the youngest look constantly in awe and the older like she was lost in a composite maze. They both had the same note pinned to their chest. And Mallow couldn't eat something of his hoard- it could be valuable. "Who approved this foolishness?" The dragon Mallow perched in front of the eldest. She held her young sister in her lap and exposed one pink ear to the draft. "My mother sent us," Rowan said with a quick nod toward the mouth of the cave and a bit too loud. "She's a witch." "Good for her." "She's says you've met before." Mallow narrowed his eyes. "Oh?" He gave a terrible grin with a terrible puff of his chest. "And she sent me unskilled tiny servants in response. How lovely." "Don't be daft," Rowan said frankly and bounced her baby sister up and down on her knee. "Do you have any kinding "I should turn you to splinters for asking," Mallow narrowed his cat-like eyes. He enunciated slowly, "I only collect valuable things. Things worth more than your life. Things you cannot burn." "Aye," the girl replied absently. "Perhaps you should offer me something of the like in exchange for your life." The younger sister tugged on her sister. "Scary." "Yes, yes." The dragon puffed up. "Your sister seems to have some sense." "Not you." The sister's eyes flicked to the dragon's pile of whittled instruments from the Year of the Elder Crow. "We have something mum says you can't say no to. Do you have kindling now?" The dragon's eyes went wide. He was a creature of want after all. "Something I can't say no to? A Witch must like to gamble." He repeated, smiling and leaning forward. The girl held his gaze. "But I can't show you 'till tomorrow." The dragon circled around the children and thrashed his tails and made his threats, but Rowan was already putting her headgear back on and curling up around the other child. Mallow knew he was being played, but retribution could wait until The children were unarmed after all and he could spare some ancient tomes on taxation for their fire. —-- An older child named Ralph arrived in the night. A mealy child who had pick-pocket hands and a lean-dog frame. "No! Absolutely not," Mallow growled. "I am not here for the village's lost scoundrel children." Ralph was wearing a gauzy series of headbands and sat down next to the others, sucking in his lower lip. Mallow bared his teeth and Rowan held up something wooden and boxy in front of the dragon's long snout. "It's inside." He delicately picked up a box with many indents and moving parts. "A treasure from the Witch Hazel," Rowan said loudly, one ear exposed. "If you can solve it that is." "There is no manmade contraption I cannot master." The Dragon sat back on his haunches. "I'm sure your people say that's what dragon's traded our souls for." The new boy, Ralph, folded his arms over his chest. "Lotta good souls do us." "Don't say that," Rowan hissed at him and clutched at the Witch's holy hawthorn around her neck. The dragon laughed. "Perhaps he can stay. Tell me, boy, how attached to your soul are you?" Ralph crossed his arms over his chest. "Depends on what they're offering." "Don't humor him." Rowan met the dragon's eyes and they seemed to burn. A challenge. "Our mum says you have a soul. She sent us here. And she is the cleverest and most revered lady-" "Bragging doesn't suit meals," he cut her off. Mallow turned the box around in his claws. Rowan set her jaw. "We're using the canvases as beds." "Don't you dare. You're leaving in the morning." The boy that was mostly ribs sniffed, "If you can solve that thing, aye?" The ancient dragon griped, and snarled and eventually lay down to twist the small box into different shapes. Children's play, it had to be children's play. --- The children might be trying to trick that dragon. Mallow came down from the top of his pile of gold to ask for a hint on the puzzle box the next morning. Naturally, there were five more children in the small camp. Some of these kids wore rags tied around their heads in long strips that made them seem bulbous. Two of the kids wore almost nothing at all and walked around with fingers jammed in their ears. They all had something different clutched in their puny hands or tied to their wastes with a note. For your treasure. For the dracon. Foyr yur horde. The Dragon reared up. "I do not collect children." He shook the cavern. Two of the kids stumbled forward and shoved puzzles made of hoops or stones at him. One presented a wooden jewelry box with a riddle. Rowan batted her eyes and said very simply, "Can you not solve these? My mother, the witch," she emphasized, "said you could." Mallow settled down in front of the older child, "Are these even solvable you urchin? Provide a hint to let me know they are not an impossible task." Rowan pointed at where to place his fingers. The cave became far too lively and far too much singing and running filled the space. But some good came of it. After a great deal of twisting and complaining, Mallow conquered the cleverest of Witch Boxes. He plucked a ring from inside the contraption and rotated it against the light. "It's a mood ring. A ring that can detect your mood." "Magic!" The dragon purred. He slipped it on the very end of his tail. "A gift indeed. What does it say, young witchling?" "Purple means passion." Rowan shrugged and went back to a kind of flower arrangement. "Or something. Mallow flicked his tail and grinned. Passion was indeed what he felt in the contest of wills with the box; proper magic. An eerie-looking child, ghost-like and pathetic, stumbled toward him and held up a game of colored tiles. A player must "connect four" to best their opponent. He settled down in front of the phantom child, Sally, to challenge her wits. "Very well, you may stay another night. My little hoard." The children ran in circles and seemed to acquiesce to the ideal through their cries of delight. —---- Dragons avoid spending time with their own kind, much less that of other species. Juveniles even worse. Which was why Mallow decided to turn them into an adequate army instead. Provided with creaky wooden swords and dinner-plate size shields, he rallied the children to prepare to do great battle. "Yes! Yes, we will unleash the seven furies of hell and overtake the kings of the mountaintops and queens of the oceans. They will cower before us, lament their fates, and relinquish their gold to our cave." Shrieking laughter and whooping answered Mallow. Laurel appeared to be making her wooden sword and wooden dagger kiss. Ralph was making one of the younger boys hit himself. Sally fell down, scraped her knees, and started crying. No matter, Mallow collected every medicinal wonder of the world. His troops continued to train as Mallow dug through one of his herbal collections. He didn't see the figure appear. Music began to play. A jaunty, slippery sound from a panpipe. The lullaby, sickly sweet and unnatural, filled the space and seemed to muffle the air itself like a blanket. "Get off! Get off, you wanker!" Mallow turned in place. Ralph and others marched across the cavern, stiff-limbed and empty-eyed toward the opening. The other children were in chaos. Sally, bleeding knees and all, bodily tackled Marco to the ground and wrenched the gauze from out of his ears. The twins Lucas and Abigail wrestled on the ground, trying yank fingers out of ears. A pair of yellow eyes glowed in the dark. The children were walking. The music played on. Mallow leapt toward the front of the cave and let his fangs dripped molten hot. He roared, "You think to disturb the sanctity of my treasure?!" The Pied Piper blew a sharper note, but Mallow was beyond such tricks and tore through the night with his claws. The Trickster was faster and ducked. He smiled something sour and cruel and blew a series of musical notes. The Trickster's yellow eyes were swallowed by the dark. A note was left in his place that simply read, PAY UP. The dragon's chest heaved and his breath steamed against the air. He threw himself into the sky and flew across the mountaintops, searching and lighting up the night in flames. But Pied Piper's were not easily caught. Mallow returned and counted their heads. There were seventeen. Just as the number they had started with. The children looked up at him with enormous shining eyes and the younger ones threw their arms around his leg. Mallow tried to push them away and tell them of the nature of dragons: They don't lose things.Like many young, they didn't seem to listen. The children slept at his feet that night. — - --- The Piper tried to lure the children away from the cave several more times. All it took was one note and one pair of ears, sometimes the Piper brought in outside children as well and laid traps and schemes. Sometimes he simply grabbed one child under his arm and ran. "They must pay," he repeated like a rabid man. "They must pay their debts." Dragons however, did not pay prices. And he did not tolerate being stolen from. No matter how far the bard ran, the dragon was faster. He plucked Ralph back from the man's arms and almost lit the ocean on fire. Marco and Laurel rode on his back from the dark forest. Rowan learned to light Witch's Fire and The Piper gained a new scar when he tried a fourth time. And a fifth. That was the first year where no children drowned from the Town of Hoppling. Families from Bernick and Wastings and city children from the Skid Row and the fish monger districts that couldn't pay the Piper, all arrived at the cave of the Dragon Mallow. They only had to bring a simple game and perhaps a clever riddle to share around the fire. The Dragon gained a new name in the years he guarded his hoard and scared away the Piper. Dragons don't have souls. But if they did, there might be one named Mallow, Saint of Children. Saint of Safety in Fire.